Search results for ‘Subject term:"child protection"’ Sort:
Results 1 - 10 of 137
Poverty and decision making in child welfare and protection: deepening the bias-need debate
- Authors:
- BRADT Lieve, et al
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 45(7), 2015, pp.2161-2175.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
The influence of socio-economic background factors, such as poverty, on the risk of children to be disproportionately represented and placed in residential care has increasingly been the subject of international research. This article reports on the findings of a research project that focused on the relationship between poverty and child welfare and protection (CWP) interventions in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). Using logistic regression models (N = 33,423), the authors examined which specific socio-economic risk factors in the total population of children enhances the risk of CWP interventions. The results show that all included socio-economic variables, except one, show an increased risk of CWP interventions. The results also reveal that a rather dominant social, cultural and historically rooted construction of middle-class family life seems to be an important ground for interventions. Based on these findings, it is argued that the current debate on bias might mask implicit assumptions within CWP decision making. (Publisher abstract)
Child deprivation and compulsory measures: exploring the links in Edinburgh
- Author:
- HANSON Lucy
- Publisher:
- Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration
- Publication year:
- 2006
- Pagination:
- 29p.
- Place of publication:
- Stirling
The Children’s Hearings System is a unique legal system in Scotland that deals with care and justice for Scotland’s children. The first step in the Children’s Hearings System is referral to the Children’s Reporter. Referrals to a Reporter can be made for a variety of reasons related to the care, protection, guidance and control of children. Having received a referral, the Reporter investigates each case to decide whether compulsory measures of intervention are required. Where compulsory measures are considered necessary, a Children’s Hearing will be arranged where the Children’s Panel Members decide what further action to take. When legal intervention is decided, the Hearing can make a compulsory Supervision Requirement. Specific conditions are attached to the Supervision Requirement such as engagement with a specific project, or changing the place where a child may live. This study examined the number of Supervision Requirements across Edinburgh to see if there were connections between the amount of Supervision Requirements made and measures of deprivation, according to home addresses.
Are child welfare intervention rates higher or lower in areas targeted for enhanced early years services?
- Authors:
- SCOURFIELD Jonathan, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Child Abuse Review, 30(4), 2021, pp.306-317.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Flying Start is an enhanced early years programme in Wales which is targeted at areas where a high proportion of households with children are recipients of income-related benefits or tax credits. Child protection interventions are known to be concentrated in more deprived areas. Flying Start could have the effect of reducing risk to children or, conversely, it could result in more children coming to the attention of social services. Administrative data were used to identify children in public care and on child protection registers in Wales on 31 March 2015 and to identify lower super output areas covered by Flying Start services. Child welfare intervention rates were examined, and a comparison was made between areas within deprivation quintiles where Flying Start was operating and areas where it was not. In areas where Flying Start services are provided, child welfare intervention rates are higher than in areas where they are not, after controlling for multiple deprivation. Further work is needed to establish why child welfare intervention rates are higher in Flying Start areas and what effect there might be longer term. (Edited publisher abstract)
Opening the time capsule of ACEs: reflections on how we conceptualise children’s experiences of adversity and the issue of temporality
- Authors:
- DEVANEY John, FREDERICK John, SPRATT Trevor
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 51(6), 2021, pp.2247-2263.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
In this article, we engage with some of the fundamental concepts underpinning the original adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) study and subsequent work, whilst recognising that the terminology of ACEs has in some ways become reductionist and problematic. Although an imperfect concept covering a range of childhood adversities at a personal, intrapersonal and community level, ACEs have utility in bridging scientific and lay communities. The evidence clearly identifies that ‘numbers matter’ and that whereas children may be able to cope with a little adversity over a short period of time when they have good support networks, too much adversity over too long a time period, even with good support, will be problematic for the child and their family. Alongside exploring the cumulative impact of adversity, social workers and other professionals need to engage with the temporal component of when adversity is experienced, and for how long, together with the consequences for helping services in deciding when to intervene and for what period of time. This opens the discussion of who is best placed to support children and families experiencing certain types of adversity and how we think about structural issues such as poverty and community violence within the ACEs discourse. (Edited publisher abstract)
Housing, homelessness and children’s social care: towards an urgent research agenda
- Authors:
- CROSS Sally, et al
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, early cite August 2021, p.bcab130.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Having a secure, safe and affordable home is an essential element in the experience of a ‘good enough’ childhood. This is not available to a large and growing number of children and parents in the UK because of a structural housing crisis affecting the availability, quality, affordability and regulation of accommodation. There is a clear body of evidence which demonstrates the negative effects of poor housing and homelessness on children’s health and development. A much smaller body of work implicates housing policies and conditions in child abuse and neglect, but there is a profound lack of good quality data or research about the role which housing and homelessness play in shaping demand for social care in the UK. This article reviews the available evidence, identifying limitations and gaps. Its aim is to open up policy and practice conversations about the increasing significance of housing and homelessness as a critical issue for children’s social care in the UK whilst making the case for an urgent research agenda. (Edited publisher abstract)
‘You decide’: relationship-based knowledge and parents’ participation in high-risk child protection crisis interventions
- Authors:
- SAAR-HEIMAN Yuval, KRUMER-NEVO Michal
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 50(6), 2020, pp.1743-1757.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
In the scholarly writing on child protection, there is a broad consensus regarding the importance of parents’ participation in knowledge-production processes. However, there is limited research on the conditions required to make parental participation possible in high-risk crisis situations. In particular, there is a dearth of writing that takes into consideration the context of poverty that influences families’ lives and the power imbalances between social workers and parents that are evident in these processes. Through a case illustration of a high-risk crisis situation in the Israeli child protection system, this article examines the potential contribution of a developing critical paradigm—the Poverty-Aware Paradigm—to the promotion of parents’ participation in high-risk crisis situations. Specifically, it points to ‘relationship-based knowledge’ as an organizing axis for knowledge production, and to its derivative, ‘dialogue on power/knowledge’, as a useful practice in child protection interventions. The case analysis reveals three distinguishing features of this dialogue: (i) the social worker holds a dialectic stance regarding knowledge; (ii) the social worker and the parents negotiate their interpretations; and (iii) the social worker shares common hopes and worries with the parents. (Edited publisher abstract)
The poverty-aware paradigm for child protection: a critical framework for policy and practice
- Authors:
- SAAR-HEIMAN Yuval, GUPTA Anna
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 50(4), 2020, pp.1167-1184.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This article aims to present a Poverty-Aware Paradigm for Child Protection (PAPCP). The increasing scholarly recognition of the damaging impact of poverty, inequality and the neoliberal politics of ‘risk’ on child protection policy and practice, has highlighted the need for a justice-based and poverty-aware analytical framework for child protection social work. In order to create such a framework, the authors build upon Krumer-Nevo’s Poverty-Aware Paradigm (PAP)—that was first presented in a previous issue of the British Journal of Social Work—and adapt its paradigmatic premises to the context of child protection social work. By addressing ontological, epistemological and axiological questions underpinning the construction of risk and the practices utilised to deal with it, the article provides a clear, practical and applicable link between critical theories and everyday child protection practice. The PAPCP is presented against the background of the risk-focused paradigm currently dominating the child protection systems in both the authors’ countries—Israel and England. (Edited publisher abstract)
Screen, ration and churn: demand management and the crisis in children’s social care
- Authors:
- HOOD Rick, et al
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 50(3), 2020, pp.868-889.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This article presents findings from a quantitative study of the national data-sets for statutory children’s social care services in England. The aim of the study was to examine how demand management varied in local authorities with differing levels of area deprivation. About 152 local authorities census returns and other statistical indicators covering the period 2014–2017 were combined into a single data-set. Statistical analysis was undertaken to explore trends over time and correlations between indicators that might indicate patterns in the way demand was managed. Findings showed that high levels of deprivation have continued to be strongly linked to high levels of activity and that local authorities have continued to increase their use of protective interventions relative to referrals. Evidence was found for three interconnected mechanisms, through which local authorities tended to manage demand for services: screening, rationing and workforce churn. The article describes these mechanisms and comments on their significance for the current crisis of demand in the sector. (Edited publisher abstract)
Inequalities in English child protection practice under austerity: a universal challenge?
- Authors:
- BYWATERS Paul, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Child and Family Social Work, 23(1), 2018, pp.53-61.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
The role that area deprivation, family poverty, and austerity policies play in the demand for and supply of children's services has been a contested issue in England in recent years. These relationships have begun to be explored through the concept of inequalities in child welfare, in parallel to the established fields of inequalities in education and health. This article focuses on the relationship between economic inequality and out‐of‐home care and child protection interventions. The work scales up a pilot study in the West Midlands to an all‐England sample, representative of English regions and different levels of deprivation at a local authority (LA) level. The analysis evidences a strong relationship between deprivation and intervention rates and large inequalities between ethnic categories. There is further evidence of the inverse intervention law (Bywaters et al., 2015): For any given level of neighbourhood deprivation, higher rates of child welfare interventions are found in LAs that are less deprived overall. These patterns are taking place in the context of cuts in spending on English children's services between 2010–2011 and 2014–2015 that have been greatest in more deprived LAs. Implications for policy and practice to reduce such inequalities are suggested. (Edited publisher abstract)
Race, poverty and child protection decision making
- Authors:
- STOKES Jacqueline, SCHMIDT Glen
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 41(6), September 2011, pp.1105-1121.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
It is widely reported that many minority groups, along with families living in poverty, are overrepresented in the child welfare system. As such, it is essential to understand how issues of socio-economic status and race enter into child protection decisions. This small study investigated the influence of race and poverty on child protection decision making in Canada. Participants from child protection services made decisions about the severity of risk, service provision and the importance of a home visit on fictitious vignettes in which the independent variables were randomly assigned. Results revealed that race and poverty were not statistically significant in any of the decisions made. Other factors such as substandard housing, spousal violence and substance misuse impacted decision making the most. A possible explanation for this finding is that child protection work with its reductionist and individualistic perspective obscures the context of people's lives. The child protection service blamed parents, and held them responsible for not protecting their child from vulnerability, regardless of historical and structural impediments.